Die französischen Präsidentschaftswahlen vom 23. April und 7. Mai 2017 im Schatten des Terrors

• Published in: Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 2017-01, Vol.48 (4), p.785-804
• Main Author: Kempf, Udo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: DOKUMENTATION UND ANALYSEN
• ISSN: 0340-1758; 1862-2534
• DOI: 10.5771/0340-1758-2017-4-785

None of the past presidential elections of the Fifth Republic has been shaped by such peculiarities as the last one. For one, President François Hollande did not run for a second term because of poor survey data. For another, the primary elections of the catch-all parties surprisingly produced only "second rank" candidates, Benoît Hamon for the Socialists and François Fillon for the Republicans. While Hamon could not even find the support among his own fellow party members due to his utopian programmatic positions, Fillon was deeply entangled in a swamp of affairs. As a result only the right populist Marine Le Pen and the independent candidate and shooting star Emmanuel Macron qualified for the run-off elections on May 7, 2017. The social liberal Macron had built a new movement out of nothing and thereby offered an alternative to the right-left dominated party state. For the first time neither a Socialist nor a Republican candidate were on the run-off ballot. Despite a high share of abstentions, Macron's Social-Liberal and pro-European program convinced the majority of voters. About a third voted for the anti-European right-wing extremist Le Pen, who argued protectionist and state interventionist. This enabled her to double her voter share and establish her party nationwide.